According to Coworking Resources, a site that provides information for coworking space owners, 189 coworking spaces are opening around the world this month.
As their chart below shows, over half of these openings are new, independent coworking spaces. The rest are expansions by independent operators (27%) or the large coworking chains (16%).
This reflects the continued growth of indie coworking spaces, who are thriving despite the rise of large coworking chains like WeWork, Industrious and others.
It also highlights the strong growth of the coworking industry.
New coworking spaces, on average, are 4-5 times larger than they were 7-8 years ago. This means the coworking industry is adding in August alone about 3-4 times the amount of space the entire industry had in 2010.
Coworking Resources tracks this by following announcements in the press as well as getting coworking space opening announcements from the spaces.
This approach results in a conservative estimate of space openings. It's really hard to capture all the announcements across 195 countries. We know because we used to do this.
But while unlikely to capture everything, this methodology provides a directionally correct and useful estimate of space openings. Kudos to Coworking Resources for taking on this challenging task.
Comments